Predictions are generally not very Prudent uses of mental energy. Every new year period yields predictions from financial experts, various historians, and, practicing their strong abilities to follow trends, politicians. Politicians are no more intelligent than 99% of the polity they claim to lead. Their skills are no greater than roughly that same percentage. They DO have unusual experiences, having agreed with their own ethics and advisors of various sources, to get involved with politics, campaigning and the miasma of half-truths and virtual untruths that “politics” seems to require in order to gain majority support.
Prudence is very close to a man who ran for office in the 1980’s. One of the most common questions directed to him was, “Why do you want to get mixed up in this stuff?” His strong beliefs about where his state government was off kilter didn’t really answer that question. In its simplest terms, it was almost, “Why would you want to become a cesspool adjuster?” Hard to answer.
One must multiply the paltry and rotten problems of one state by ten times or twenty, to appreciate the corruption of the U. S. Congress and the “swamp” it finances. Where does that leave us in the matter of predictions?
One of the most prescient observations, which sadly became a clear prediction, was from Scotsman, Alexander Fraser Tytler: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. …” It would be difficult to fashion a more succinct description – warning – of the political history of the United States. Having just watched the querulous assignation of the Speakership of the House of Representatives to Kevin McCarthy of California, and appreciating the truth of Tytler’s observation-prediction, some fresh predictions are now become Prudent.
Much of the battle for the speakership involved demands from actual conservatives to cut federal spending, even holding it to 2022 levels (a very low bar for measuring success), which would be a departure from the profligacy of recent decades of lies and spending. In other words, what those 20 or so conservatives promised to win elections is a departure from the direction of the past 7 or 8 administrations. Based on his history of “working across the aisle,” as though that were a mark of wisdom to be celebrated, McCarthy’s instincts would not have led him to run the house, its committees or the budgeting process, such as it is, along those lines. His history in the house, and some of his comments on hot issues, indicate that McCarthy acted as much in service to his party position as to hard principles. He supported Trump and criticized him. He voted for and against what might be considered “liberal” legislation. He has been more steadfast in opposing Biden-supported spending plans.
This all leads to both speculation and prediction. Not even Prudence can discern the innermost motivations of a politician, so trying to predict what the McCarthy-led House will actually do on specific issues is not likely to be useful. However, it seems Prudent to predict that some of the 6 holdouts who led the opposition to McCarthy, will face retribution, regardless of any promises from the new Speaker. The Speakership brings a lot of power, both administrative and political… plus a fatter paycheck; threats to that power will be punished.
Further, any motion to “vacate the chair,” now makeable by a single member, will never result in a change in speakership. Accepting this new rule seems like a major concession by McCarthy, but it will prove hollow.
A lot of heat will be generated from “oversight” investigations by several committees. Will any dishonest Biden administrator, of which there are several, actually be impeached or forced to resign? This is unlikely, despite the substantial law-breaking and lying to Congress that has transpired. Will anything substantive come from an investigation into Hunter Biden’s and presidential brother, Jim Biden’s, nefarious foreign influence-peddling over the years Joe Biden was Vice President? This appears to be a slam-dunk, but is also likely to be mostly heat, not light. There may be some sort of resolution passed by a slim majority in the house, but no impeachments.
Can the House, alone, force Biden to close the southern border? Theoretically… and according to the Constitution, Congress’ control of the “purse strings” can be used to propose “revenue”-raising legislation, taxation and borrowing and the like. All such must arise in the House. In addition, the ability for the Executive branch to draw moneys from the Treasury is dependent upon Congress’ passing of appropriating legislation to that effect. Amidst all the horse-trading and dealing done between the House and Senate, let alone in each House, the likelihood of targeted restrictions on expenditures in order to control or punish any executive department or agency for bad behavior, lying to Congress or various malfeasances, is quite small. It would be a watershed event, in practice, and seems doubtful in Prudence’ view.
It is more likely that specific appropriations might be voted for the purpose of closing the border and other needful actions, but, barring the willingness to perform quick impeachments, those directions given via appropriations can be “slow-walked” by the “swamp” for the duration of an administration.
Ultimately, in order to impose its will in any meaningful way, the “Republican” House will have to endure a government “shutdown.” In our lifetimes there has been very little political stomach for accepting the slings and arrows that are always directed at Republicans for such a “crisis.”
The pressure in Washington, within the deep state, certainly on Capitol Hill and, to our detriment, within the so-called Biden administration, is to send money from the Treasury out to thousands of programs that reach millions of Americans, buying their votes in the process. Along the way we may adequately defend the country, but that is becoming more questionable as “woke” nonsense infects the military establishment.
Can a couple dozen conservatives in the House actually change the direction of our decline? May God make it so… otherwise, let’s all be prepared to defend our nation, economy and border.
There are many forms of conspiracy of which average citizens have some inkling or suspicion, despite, or perhaps because of the concerted mendacity of government officials and agencies, including our military bureaucrats. Particularly since the Biden administration took control, world politics and military relationships have become more dangerous, more conspiratorial and far more difficult to control, let alone understand. Naturally, Americans are much more nervous and feeling isolated, as we probably should. With China encroaching on our spheres of influence and on numerous allies like Canada, Columbia, Panama, African nations and Europe, itself… even Hungary, the “world” seems to be ganging up on the U. S.
This is a rather abrupt turn of events. One has to wonder if it’s all a matter of incompetence and lack of understanding, or if key power centers in the U. S. are executing a plan. Can these questions be answered?
Was Covid-19 a strategy or unfortunate accident?
Is the widespread “legalization” of very dangerous marijuana and the onslaught of lethal drugs flooding our neighborhoods, just wretched capitalism or an element of intentional weakness that makes sense to some people?
Is the attack on Ukraine part of an “approved” plan by globalists to weaken NATO and the U. S.?
Is the “attack” on oil and gas in the U. S. part of the same plan?
Where did the basic plan to expand “transgenderism” among grade-schoolers originate?
How is it that major hospitals suddenly coordinated with the LGBTQ+ agenda and public schools to begin performing transgender mutilations and sterilizations?
Is the pressure to give virtually everyone from age 5 and up the modified RNA injections part of a larger objective of weakening individual freedom, lower general health and possibly population control?
Who, or what country(ies), actually benefits from the dramatic changes in U. S. monetary and immigration policies?
Who, or what country(ies), benefits from election fraud?
Who, or what country(ies), benefits from soft-on-crime policies in major cities?
Who, or what country(ies), benefits from high inflation in the U. S.?
Who, or what country(ies), benefits from restricting food production – reducing fertilizer use and sequestering productive acreage?
These are all rather sad questions to be able to posit. How could so many negative policies suddenly descend upon our nation and people? Can they all be parts of tragic, unavoidable coincidences? Or, could they be coordinated from… well, somewhere? Someone? Some group?
Can we put much credence into the idea that Joe Biden, a man whose mental state requires guides and “handlers” at all times, actually believes in what he says or does, or that he thought up the set of policies he has put into action?
Or, God forbid, but not an impossibility, is it possible that leftists/globalists in the United States’ “deep state” have considered the evolving relationships and power of Red China, the problems and responsibilities of American freedom and nationalism and the blandishments of the World Economic Forum in terms of a financial control model of vastly smaller populations, and decided that the only answer to the possibilities of wars and nuclear conflict is to throw in with the W.E.F. and establish a global government able to negotiate with, and even coerce China into coexistence? Perhaps systemic treason has been sold to the oligarchy as salvation.
If broadcast words could be weighed, it seems Prudent that they would amount to a great, ponderous weight… and more than weight, a great mass possessed of a great inertia. Fortunately, since most have no “God particles,” they bear no weight at all. The God particle of speech is a mix of logic and sense or, put another way, reason and truth. When enriched with God particles, speech carries a lot of weight, influence and ability to move vast nations, like ours. We used to call it “common sense” but it is so uncommon, now, that we rarely hear that term.
So it is with most pronouncements and policies emanating from the federal government under the Biden administration. Daily, and sometimes more than once a day, the Biden regime states a policy that is questioned only by a few, with most of media agreeing with leftism, and almost inevitably it is a policy that cannot be justified on logical bases or on (uncommon) sense. A very clear example of this phenomenon is “Biden’s” (read: Obama’s) open borders policy and relaxing of immigration laws. Millions of people have flooded (read: invaded) our nation while the Biden administration states that “…the border is secure…” There are neither logic nor truth connected to this policy.
The ”Green New Deal” is a prime example of this process of misleading. The “GND” is a lie based on a lie, but elevated to spiritual truth despite the near absence of “God Particles” in any of it. There are truths nearby to it, but they lead in a very different direction from where the “Greens” intend to force humanity. To start, the degree of human impact on the rate or type of “climate change” is immeasurable, as in unquantifiable, and our ability to alter it is unknown, if any. Hence, it is completely illogical to destroy societies and standards of living in order to “fix” climate change. Climate has been changing for as long as there has been an atmosphere on Earth: warm, cold, ice ages, sweltering swamp and warm oceans, dry, wet and every mixture thereof.
The major effort of the “GND” is the changing of energy sources from so-called fossil fuels (and nuclear) to so-called “renewables’ or “natural” energy sources. The problems with this “conversion” grow destructive because the proposed alternatives are available only intermittently. The green theory depends on wonderful batteries to capture energy when it’s available. Such batteries are very ecologically “dirty” to make and to later recycle. When all the energy inputs are calculated to make (now) lithium-ion batteries, and to create, erect and maintain solar and wind-power collector/generators, there is no advantage or even equivalence to the ecological cleanliness of our cleanest and most efficient uses of oil and gas and even coal.
However, leftists have adopted the green new deal as the best way to replace the capitalist, free-enterprise economy. If it hurts the majority of Americans it seems to be of no concern of theirs, if not their intent. Their claim is that we must “decarbonize” in a decade or so or the planet will be destroyed by climate change and we’ll all die. Human life is based on carbon. Decarbonizing includes, in “green” theology, that there are too many people as well as too many cows, and too many farms using too much fertilizer growing food for too many people. It’s not a pleasant concept. Still, if we discard most of the progress civilization has made, both technically and politically, the Green gods will be pleased and will make the Earth more perfect for those people self-judged to be better than most and deserving of longer lives.
Our Military posture is another source of abundant fallacy. Any policy that involves “woke” theories of racial and sexual identity is fundamentally untrue, yet both now appear to govern “military” thinking and practice. We annually entrust hundreds of billions of dollars to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military branches, ostensibly to keep the country protected by maintaining overwhelming strength and prowess, both technological and human. Instead the Pentagon has elected to cater to trangenderism – its own body of fallacy, if not phallacy – equal rights for women, a mixed bag of strength and weakness and waste, and politicized medicine, to wit, mandated “vaccines” that don’t work and risk the health of personnel.
The vaccine mandate error, alone, has cost thousands of trained – expensively trained and experienced – soldiers, sailors, airmen and women, and marines, their positions “in” the military. What a stupid waste. Clearly there is no capacity for admitting egregious errors by top “brass” or their civilian counterparts. Altogether, over the past several years, their efforts have weakened the U. S. military. It seems that this is failure of the grossest order. Has anyone lost his or her exalted ranked position for this failure? Not that Prudence can recall; with a group of relatively unintelligent far-leftists holding executive power since January 2021, we’re not likely to hear of any in the immediate future, either.
Just the egregiously damaging withdrawal / retreat from Afghanistan in August of 2021 should have resulted in a dozen or more high-level firings and resignations. The only person forced out of service is a Lt. Colonel who had the temerity to point out the multiple failures being executed in that withdrawal. Shame on us for tolerating, even rewarding such stupidity; shame on us for electing “executives” who employ stupid ideologies for U. S. policy. God save us.
One way to look at our current national condition is from the top of the Mountain Of Lies. It’s a better viewpoint for observing the accumulating effects of dishonesty upon the health and strength of the nation to which it is dished on a literal daily basis. Sometimes there is illumination provided by organizing lists of items that share one or more parameters. It will be Prudent to consider the entirety, if not enormity of the following list of lies on which Americans’ lives depend:
LAW. Our history and culture are replete with real and literary conspiracies based on subversion of laws. To Prudence, undercutting the law is the worst of all lies. Peace, safety, freedom and life, itself, depend on honesty in matters of law. It is still worse when it leaves the individual level and seeps into “official” policy and action – denying or subverting the law, that is. We can see the scope of damage that official lying can do, by reflecting on the completely fabricated “Russia” conspiracy that politicians and law-enforcement agencies attempted to pin on Donald Trump before he won election as 45th President, and through much of his administration. Subverting federal laws only expanded after that.
A few people lost their jobs at the FBI, but, so far, not their pensions! The message is that anything illegal done against Donald Trump is not considered to be nearly as bad as illegal acts taken against some other American citizen. Yes, you broke the law, but it doesn’t bother us enough to apply legal sanctions – wink, wink. Subversion of law: one of the worst kinds of lie.
But, unfortunately, the unprecedented crimes against Trump are not the worst in terms of how the citizens of the U. S. are besmirched by government lying. We have to look at immigration and border policies and practices since Joe Biden signed that stack of executive orders on January 21st, 2021.
U.N. and U.S. rules for “refugee” and “asylum” status are pretty loose, subject to multiple steps of acceptance despite previous errors or even untrue/fraudulent applications. A judge can always accept some claim of good reasons to submit fraudulent statements in order to obtain safety unavailable in their country of origin. In other words, it is subjective at almost every step. Those who hyperventilate over “loopholes” in tax laws are singularly unconcerned about the sieve of loopholes in immigration law. Interestingly, many of the possible claims for asylum are based on non-binary sexuality. However, there are laws and regulations that govern the processing of asylum claims and of asylees, themselves. These are being ignored at the President’s direction, leaving millions of illegal entrants in our country with virtually no way for our erstwhile protectors to monitor or arrest them when they fail to appear for “hearings” required by law.
It’s all part of “Progressives’” intention to dissemble our Constitutional Republic. Every person connected to the Biden administration who comments on “the border,” has lied about it, and quite consistently. Those are bad lies, sure enough.
LEGISLATION. Once upon a time in Washington, representatives of the people and representatives of the states would diligently research and debate, in both Houses of Congress, the federal budget. Presidential administrations would cook up budgets with their own plans and hopes, including the increased spending inevitably required by each and every one of the 1,000 or so executive departments, offices, agencies and “black” projects. Congress, politically, would dissect parts of it, replace parts of it, gain hours of news coverage about their essential work, and eventually pass some form of it, including myriad political advantages for the parties holding some level of power: earmarks. And, always, plenty of “pork.”
The two great sources of power in Congress are 1) Spending; and, 2) Taxing. No matter how motivated or honest a new congressperson may be, fairly quickly he or she becomes either purposefully corrupt or casually corrupted by the systems of Congress. The orientation process for newbies includes explaining why it is that what each feels is the right thing to do… cannot be done. In order to accomplish a small bit of what spurred the campaign to enter Congress, much has to be compromised. That is the economic dynamic of Congress – not right or wrong, but bartering for good and not-good. With the number-one goal of everyone in both Houses being re-election, the barter system quickly becomes bartering to gain re-election benefits. Voting on the so-called “budget” offers dozens of barter opportunities, and so it goes. It is inherently corrupt and corrupting, which means that our fresh new representatives – House or Senate – must lie to us at their first opportunity.
Then, there are the aggregations of spending and taxing ideas that are given names like, “The Inflation Reduction Act.” These mountains of malarkey cut and pasted by the “power brokers” who then present a 1,000-page or 3,000-page pile of words with hundreds of new “laws” included and call for a vote within 24 or 48 hours. No one can read or understand the implications all of it before voting, yet there is a great trumpeting of accomplishment. Most of the time prior to the vote is spent by each “yea” voter to find something – anything – that he or she can tell constituents was “accomplished” for their benefit, including how their representative “fought” for them against the evils of Washington. Still, where’s the truth? There are $31 Trillion in the national debt that display 65 years of great lying to American citizens.
IMMIGRATION: No country is a greater magnet for emigration than the U. S. Despite the constant Marxist drumbeat of “systemic” racism, imminent murder of blacks by police and unfair incarceration of pathetic, somewhat innocent or non-responsible prisoners, people of color flock to our southern border by the millions. Some just walk in and say the magic words claiming asylum. Our Border Patrol officers spend virtually all of their time “processing” the flood of people from up to 100 countries(!). In The meantime, about 25% as many as claim asylum escape through our poorly secured border, carrying tons of fentanyl and other drugs (drugs that kill over 100,000 young Americans every year) as well as carrying plans in some of their heads to commit terrorist attacks.
It is one of the prime responsibilities of a President and administration to prevent these very circumstances. For a government to NOT fulfill this obligation requires two forms of “untruth:” 1) a purpose other than protecting the United States or its citizens; and, 2) a constant barrage of utter lies about the “secure” status of the casually breeched southern border, supporting the pretense of an administration that is fulfilling its vows. Typically, there is a penalty to pay for lying, much more so if the lie causes injury or cost to the subject(s) of it. What sort of penalty is appropriate for this grandiose lie?
The upshot of this close-to-the-worst-of-lies is that about 4 MILLION illegal entrants are scattered across the country. Each of them is a living, breathing, expensive lie. Along with them are the nearly 1 MILLION “gotaways” who evaded apprehension thanks to President Biden’s utter… no, purposeful… failure to complete the border wall, which would at least have channeled prospective entrants to limited points of entry. They are all lies, too, whose very presence implies some sort of right to be inside our borders. That there is no such right for nearly all of the 4 MILLION and the 1 MILLION, simply compounds the grotesque lie this administration has been telling American citizens.
COVID: This compendium of lies began 10 years ago as the great Dr. Anthony Fauci funneled NIAID grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for gain-of-function research on the SARS-2 coronavirus. He has denied that purpose, of course, which simply shows that lying is common in the federal government’s hundreds of agencies. Fauci’s NIAID agency of the CDC earned millions in royalties from helping Moderna develop its mRNA “vaccine” (the vaccine that doesn’t prevent infection, doesn’t create immune response and doesn’t prevent contagion), which Moderna was working on in Wuhan months before the world heard of the novel coronavirus, Covid-19.
Interestingly, the only response to Covid infection was – and still is – “vaccination.” All other treatments, some very effective, have been suppressed and discussion of them censored. Reputable scientists estimate that half a million American deaths can be blamed on failures to treat Covid with known anti-virals, immune boosters and supplements. Individual personnel within the NIH are allowed to earn royalties from numerous pharmaceuticals they helped to research, including the slickest liar of all, Dr. Anthony Fauci, reportedly the highest-paid employee in the federal swamp. Lying about Covid must have been the most lucrative scam he’s had. To really push the mass vaccination program that was part of a tawdry, essentially worldwide scheme, great fear had to be fomented, and locking down the country from most business activity fitted in perfectly with that goal.
First, though, the “Friends of Fauci,” recognized scientists all, conspired to flood medical publications with false opinion papers that claimed, uniformly, that the origin of the ENGINEERED SARS-2 novel coronavirus came from some natural evolution that workers at a “wet market” in Wuhan city were exposed to. Real virologists, like Fauci, can identify the Furin cleavage site in the viral chain where other genes were added to the original SARS virus. Yet the papers went forth at Fauci’s direction to confuse politicians and divert attention from the financing of the exact research – begun in the U. S. and shifted to Wuhan – that made COVID-19 so infectious. Lies have consequences.
COVID killed a lot of people, although far fewer than statistics claim, and nowhere at a higher rate than in the United States! How could that possibly be? We certainly have a right to know.
In effect, the pandemic here was handled politically, not medically. Fauci and others inside the deep state, beholden to big Pharma, and PROFITING from them, advised federal and state governments to impose useless and actually harmful steps, locking down economic and social activities, ruining family economics and, worst of all, forcing protocols on hospitals that ignored known treatments and caused the deaths of thousands who could have survived. It seems criminal.
As the so-called “vaccines” were introduced, the lies became greater. The definition of “vaccine” had to be changed to include the weird chemicals that comprise mRNA shots. Pushing them as vaccines was and still is comforting to the average “emergency use” recipient, now pushed down to infants and children. Unfortunately, nRNA shots don’t prevent the disease, they don’t prevent infecting others, and they don’t instill normal immune response. Oh, and they don’t last long in their one effect: mitigating the “severity” of infection. As one gets into “booster shot” country, the effects dwindle to a month or two. The shots are utter failures as vaccines and immensely successful as money-transfer agents.
But, wait! There’s more!… or less. The shots are dangerous to humans! You’ve seen the ads, over and over, telling the trusting that COVID vaccine is “effective and safe.” Some mothers couldn’t wait for them to be available so that their kids could be protected from a disease that is of nearly ZERO threat to them! Zero as in NO THREAT! Why force an experimental drug known to damage children to the point that they are at greater risk from the injections than they are from the disease? I’ll tell you why: FEAR and two years’ of lies from our helpful government.
Other lies… well, let’s talk about IMMIGRATION. Anyone in this administration or Congressional Democrat who happens to get a question about the “control” of the border with Mexico, lies. No one stands out as telling the truth about this one issue.
President Biden is virtually never asked about the border – that’s left up to his press flacks: first Jen Psaki and now the incomparable Karinne Jean-Pierre. On August 29th reporter, Peter Doocy asked “KJP” why tennis star Novak Djokovic cannot enter the United States to play in a tennis tournament because he ‘s not “vaccinated” against Covid, but migrants can just walk into Texas and Arizona unvaccinated and are allowed to stay?
Jean-Pierre’s response was that just walking in was not how it works. When corrected of that notion she stated that “…it’s not like that you can’t just walk over and…” And so it goes in the great mendacity machine that is the Biden administration.
Prudence has asked before: Where do we turn when our own government lies to us?
Following the assassination of John Kennedy, numerous bad, poorly thought-out ideas became legislation and law, not least of which was “The Great Society.” Among them was the Immigration and Nationality Act. Promoted by avowed socialist, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, the “Hart-Celler” act opened immigration to all nations somewhat equally, no longer favoring European nations, and gave preference to those who claimed relatives already resident in the U. S. The wording of the bill included preference for skilled persons, but the new relative-based “Chain” migration superseded that.
Immigration increased and shifted dramatically in nationalities represented, but it took a while for Democrats, fairly solidly in power in the congress for 40 years, to grasp the possibility of using immigration to increase the population of Democrat voters. In 1986, during the Reagan administration, the first codification of a premise called “amnesty,” the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, was sold to the President as a means to control illegals’ taking of jobs in the private economy, while strengthening the Border Patrol. Rather than a “solution” it created a platform for increasing problems, the worst of which, in a legal sense, is the concept of “amnesty,” which is a pleasant-sounding term for “helping” the downtrodden. Amnesty does, in fact, help the poor unfortunates who “risk everything” to escape less-pleasant circumstances to sneak into the U. S., which is not to say that such “helping” is the business of the U. S. or of those American citizens elected to administer the government of the United States.
That is, “our” representatives, the crux of our democratic Republic, have NO BUSINESS giving away the birthright or adopted, legal citizen-rights of U. S. citizens. Prudence hopes that statement is not confusing to her readers.
Between these two nation-weakening steps the political left in the U. S. learned the power of guilt as a means of twisting national direction. Hillary Clinton and many others thought her husband’s presidency was finally the time to take over health care, a cornerstone of the Communist Manifesto. While the timing was off, and Bill Clinton’s mendacity led to his moving rightward to win re-election, the pattern was set. Along with “de-education” by their friends in the education unions, left-facing Democrats could shift America to a one-party state with sufficient guilt (over racism), the unseating of Christianity, and control of the Supreme Court – courts, generally, being merely another political tool to use when Americans proved too dense to agree with global socialism. Hatred became the political engine to keep the shift moving.
Hatred was firmly applied in the George W. Bush administration. Hardly a day passed that he wasn’t vilified, yet he still managed to defeat Kerry to earn a second term. The election of Barack Obama established non-compromise as a policy. Not only with “Obamacare,” but with numerous issues, compromise with Republicans became the very last, possible resort to get things done. No longer were Republicans brought in to help shape solutions; Obama’s goals were all transformative, anti-Constitutional, and, largely, party-line. “Elections have consequences.”
A fairly porous southern border became, under Obama, fairly open. For the first time “caravans” of illegal immigrants formed up at the southern Mexico border, or in Guatemala, and moved north with substantial help from human traffickers – cartels that found they could charge many thousands of dollars for individuals and whole families to get to the U. S. border. They even taught the interlopers what to say to guarantee a hearing on refugee or asylee status. Illegal entrants, always a problem, nearly untouched by “amnesty,” became a flood. Obama and his corrupt AG, Eric Holder, had no interest in stemming the flow. Despite higher “deportation” numbers than previous administrations, Obama changed the immigration landscape with selective enforcements and easier entry for children. Cartels took advantage of changes and began teaching people to say the right things to create potential asylum, and to have children with them at the border, even if only “rented” for the purpose. “Immigration” became one of the potent issues that propelled Donald Trump into the White House.
Obama, extra-legally, also invented “DACA,” Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals. By executive order the President changed the status of those who were brought into the U. S. illegally before they turned 18, making them magically less illegal than their parents. It covered some 750,000 child arrivals. That group also were given renewable work permits. Since they had “grown up” in the U. S., everyone felt sorry for them and that it would be cruel to force them back to their own countries. More magic.
At the time of the 1986 Amnesty bill / farce, illegals were estimated to number about 7 million. As the next few years passed under Clinton, that estimate slid up to “12 million,” and no matter how illegal they might be, surely it was not possible to “arrest 12 million people” and deport them! The groundwork for lawlessness being rewarded was being put into place.
The Obama administration saw an explosion of “sanctuaries” for illegals: first towns and cities, and later whole states, declared themselves “sanctuary” jurisdictions where local and state police would be directed to not cooperate with federal C.I.S. and I.C.E. agents as they attempted to apprehend known criminals who were illegal entrants. I.C.E., standardly, would file a detain and hold notice in a local jurisdiction or with a court magistrate whenever local police or sheriffs had arrested a fugitive illegal. Local authorities, even judges, would facilitate the escape of the fugitive, even sentencing them to a number of days that meant they were free to go following their court appearance. Then an employee or even a court officer would help the criminal out a back door so as to avoid federal I.C.E. agents attempting to serve an arrest warrant. Criminal magic.
Is this “nullification?” Not quite, but it certainly skirts the law. Federal jurisdiction clearly extends to our borders and immigration, customs, contraband interdiction and arrest and deportation of illegal aliens. In effect, our borders extend to any physical location of an illegal entrant. “Sanctuary” status, self-declared by local authorities, attempts to establish local jurisdiction over illegal entrants where none exists, and in contravention of federal jurisdiction, that does exist, in law. When President Trump attempted to withhold federal aid to police agencies that refused to cooperate with federal warrants, he was rebuffed by judges on the basis that there were no provisions for singling out departments or agencies for such withholding unless they had broken certain laws including misuse of funds. Since police power is the jurisdiction of respective states, the President’s instincts couldn’t apply. This is not to say that “Sanctuary” status is recognized in law or precedent; it is tolerated for lack of sanctions and lack of will to legislate them by Congress.
For the most crass and cynical reasons of political advantage, protecting illegal aliens became widespread: for Democrats, the eventual amnesty they pushed for might create millions of democrat voters; for Republicans, being accused of being anti-immigrant, or anti-Hispanic or, worse, racist, was too hurtful or too much trouble to refute. Both parties’ supporters are happy to have cheap labor. Neither party has made much sense in immigration over the past 40 years.
Trump, at least, attempted to gain control of our geographically and topographically open border with Mexico. Democrats fought him at every step, particularly in terms of building a wall that would force potential entrants to specific points of entry where administrative procedures could be followed, including adjudication of refugee or asylee claims, most of which are legally denied. Ultimately he had to divert dollars from military budgets to pay for about 500 miles of fencing. One of the first steps President Biden took was to stop construction, putting all those expenditures and materials yet to be installed, to waste. Elections have consequences.
Biden brought in Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security. Mayorkas is an accomplished and committed liar. To place him in the Cabinet is an affront to American citizens and to all those who have served in presidential administrations. To place him over “DHS” is a lie in its own right. There is no reason to trust that the Homeland is Secure. There’s no such thing as compartmentalization of national security – it functions as a whole. One cannot administer 1800 miles of wide-open border while claiming that, 1) the border is closed and secure; and, 2) we are secure at all of our ports, airports, imports and immigration procedures. One can try, however, as Mayorkas has, including serial perjury before Congress. Perhaps he’ll take the fall for the Biden administration when the rule of law returns to Capitol Hill.
Since Biden took office and started signing Executive Orders he may not have even read, more than 3 MILLION illegal entrants, claiming asylum, have been processed by the Border Patrol / DHS. They include large numbers of Central and South American migrants, family units and children and hundreds of unaccompanied “minors.” As they are “processed” they receive free cell-phones, clothing, back-packs and other niceties like “EBT” cards or meal chits, and bus or plane rides to their preferred location. What a country!
Over the same period, however, illegal entrants from over 100 other countries – people whose claims to asylum require suspension of disbelief, as they have traveled many thousands of miles to get into Central America for the walk to el Norte. There doesn’t seem to be any maximum number the administration is hoping to reach for migrants streaming across our “closed” and “secure” border.
Worse, some 900,000 “got-aways” have entered, too. Now we’re talking. No country has survived for long, nor any culture, nor any “people,” has or will survive for long if left undefended. The Biden presidency is best defined as being anti-American, best-exemplified by failure to defend the nation. Unbridled and un-vetted immigration, free from the constraints of economic merit and/or freedom from disease, is a classic form of national dissolution… as though anyone would aspire to such a level of stupidity or incompetence. One must stretch his or her incredulity to accept that Joe Biden actually received more votes for president than any other candidate ever has. None of us should overlook the leftward collapse of Biden and, essentially, everyone he works with… or for.
Mr. Biden has not only failed to comprehend the consequences of bad policies and incompetent appointees, he appears to actively pursue them. What on Earth for? More money? More recognition or fame? Help his depraved son, Hunter? Maybe he doesn’t recognize depravity when he sees it in his own family. Or, if his daughter’s diary can be believed, may… and it seems possible… maybe he doesn’t KNOW what is depraved and what is not – doesn’t know that Hunter’s incest with his older brother’s widow was depraved – or that hiring hookers to have sexual orgies laced with crack cocaine is depraved – or, as most ethical people would agree, doing the exact opposite of what he had sworn to do before God and country during inauguration, is also depraved.
Indeed, doing the exact opposite of what he has stood for during his political career is also a little depraved, when you think about it.
Prudence, in her most Prudent way, is always trying to keep up with events, trends, purposes and consequences. And, never one to stir up trouble, Prudence must admit to being fully puzzled as to why in Hell Russia invaded Ukraine? Perhaps you are wondering the same thing.
History has shown almost every way and purpose humans can imagine for attacking, invading, occupying, destroying, annexing, blockading, burning, looting, bombing or decimating both neighboring and far-off nations or tribes or even continents. Ghengis Khan and Alexander the Great had what seemed to them and their followers, valuable reasons for dominating as many states, cities and regions as they could. Hitler had his own “good” reasons for doing the same, and most Germans and like-minded – or like-confused – neighbors went along with him. The Romans could justify what they did, so did Japan so did Lenin and Stalin in Soviet days.
One expects that Vladimir Putin has a sufficient reason to attack Ukraine, but it certainly isn’t very clear or explicable. What is going on?
Given that Mr. Putin hasn’t conferred with Prudence and is not expected to anytime soon, most evidence to which we might allude will be circumstantial at best and inferential, otherwise. Many wise people have tried to evaluate what he is trying to accomplish, including experienced military leaders. But they are making military judgements of tactics and short-term strategies and, no matter how accurate, such musings won’t explain the overall purpose of employing war to “solve” some nebulous threat from Ukraine.
Perhaps the non-existent threat from Ukraine was never the impetus for invasion.
Putin is not someone most people would want to chum around with, but he’s not stupid, nor does it seem Prudent to assume that he is mentally addled. He has managed and manipulated Russia for more than 20 years, gained power and influence geopolitically in that time, and become one of the wealthiest men in the world by cleverly holding and exercising power over the oligarchs that own or control most of Russia’s large industries and banks. A significant “vig” is paid to Putin for every significant domestic and international trade deal: he is a billionaire.
However, Mr. Putin is also messianic in terms of restoring what he perceives as the once-great Russian empire. As a loyal KGB agent, once assigned to East Germany, arguably the empire’s furthest outpost, Putin was probably less concerned about Communism than he was about the territorial and political extent of the Soviet Union. The end of the Soviet system was a severe setback in his view, and something he wishes to set aright. He had what appeared, at first, to be two audiences to satisfy as to his intent and purpose: Ukraine… and Russia. It doesn’t appear that he gave a damn about what other countries thought of his threat to return Ukraine to the Russian fold. It was strictly a local matter for Ukraine to resolve by folding in the face of his threats.
Like it or not, however, Putin’s Russia is a big puzzle piece in geopolitics. As local as he may have wished to keep his piecemeal dissection of Ukraine, Putin needed to shore up his flanks while going to war on his western border. Russia’s overall military significance is tied to its huge nuclear stockpile, at least half of which is modern enough to be reliable, which is to say, 2,000 or more warheads and hundreds of missile systems that can deliver them. Its economic significance is mainly tied to oil and natural gas and extensive mineral resources. Russia’s longest border is with China, slightly longer than that with Mongolia. There have been shooting skirmishes along the border with China and the relationship between the two countries has been likened to two praying mantises in a bottle, neither trusting the other.
Lately, however – 6 to 7 years, cooperation between the two socialist/communist giants has been more active. China’s economy, despite its problems, is 6 to 7 times that of Russia’s. Russia’s huge land area sits atop enormous natural resources, particularly in oil, gas and relatively untapped shale-oil and gas. Its population, however, is shrinking. Programs have been tried to give stipends to parents for having children, but they have not worked to bring births up to even “replacement” rates. Ultimately, along with politics, economics and industrial base, population size is the key determinant in national strength, depending on how it is achieved. Massive immigration is not, generally, the solution.
China has 5 times the population of Russia, but lacks sufficient energy resources and, because of an unintended consequence of the “one-child” policies pursued in the late 1960’s through 2010 and beyond, the bias toward boys remains. This pattern skewed the balance of boys and girls significantly, as parents aborted female fetuses. During that same period, many thousands of girl babies were “adopted out” so that families could have another baby, hopefully a boy. China’s ratio of female-to-male is 100 to 118: there are not enough marriage partners to civilize the males, essentially, or to produce enough children to replace aging workers. China well understands the importance of population quality, rather than mere quantity, and it plays a multi-decade game in its quest to be the dominant country and culture. So what, you may be asking?
The issue behind almost everything is the U. S. A. China’s “problem” is not Russia, although the CCP is perfectly happy to buy oil from Russia while it stirs up problems for the “West.” It is the United States that is the main impediment to Chinese hegemony, even in its own side of Asia and Southeast Asia. After decades of buying off the elites, Wall Street, the universities, the banks and major industries in the U. S., China has finally secured a compromised President, who it has also “bought off,” and, praise the ancient dragon-gods, is also mentally incompetent! Things seem to be aligning for China’s big move to unseat the U. S., globally.
Wait a minute, you’re saying, I thought the worst problem is the brutal destruction and wanton murder of Ukraine. Sadly, Prudence thinks not, although the brutality is the worst the world has seen – paid attention to – in 30 years, except for the murder, rape and slavery promulgated in Africa, in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Libya, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali, Angola, Namibia… and on and on. Of course those countries and tribes didn’t have such good communications or beautiful buildings to be bombed as Ukraine has / had. Besides, we like Ukraine and our President’s family scammed a lot of money there. But the dead, starving, uprooted people in Africa are just as dead or more in pain than Ukrainians, who have modern neighbors to flee to and billions of dollars of aid pouring in. Prudence hates all of it, but Americans are rather selective in our outrage.
What else has been going on in Africa these past 30 or more years? Why, the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The same long-term strategy reaches into European countries, Arab /Muslim countries, South Asia, South America and Oceania. China lends money and expertise to countries that need major infrastructure in order to compete economically, but many cannot afford to pay off the loans. China is happy to trade ownership for the notes, or lifetime access to ports, natural resources, communications systems and so forth, resulting in a densifying web of influence and military advantage that is, bit by bit, surrounding Russia as effectively as it does the United States in their Western Hemisphere efforts. Hard to tell which of us is more blind.
So, is it really Prudent to connect the “Rape of Ukraine” to China? Really? “Absolutely,” seems to be the answer.
Keep in mind that China’s actions are ALWAYS in favor of China. That kind of nationalism deserves respect, and it’s fully understandable. This is why we were safer when Trump was president: “America First.” The United States is the only country that has always tried to do things, internationally, that are better for other countries, including shedding jobs and production in order to “buy” cooperation, first, to resist the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism, but later to try to buy friendship from China, of all countries! While our largesse wasn’t restricted to only China, the shift to our insidious pro-China tilt, in academia, in industry, and in our “grass-roots” politics, believe it or not, has weakened our will to defend America. The Biden regime has stopped enforcing requirements to reveal foreign sources of funds flowing to colleges and universities, most of it Chinese. Why would they do that?
It is safe to say that the timing of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was based on China’s “granting” permission to Putin. There may have been, it seems likely, some sort of permission from the W. E. F., as well. Russia had its forces gathered east of the Ukrainian border for more than a year; they could have invaded at any time. What made the winter of 2022 the “right” time? Prudence indicates that it is the presence of the Biden administration and a number of steps Biden has taken to soften U. S. policy towards China, both for responsibility for the Covid pandemic and with regards to China’s multiple efforts in other countries that have begun to compromise even southern Europe. An “America First” foreign policy would have the U. S. countering the Chinese “Belt and Road” initiatives around the world. What we must aggressively, diplomatically do is attempt to keep poorer countries from succumbing to China’s bait-and-switch. Instead, the Biden regime has ignored China’s encirclement. China has observed the shift in U. S. policy since Trump and, it seems, has decided that this period is when invading Taiwan might be most successful. It is unclear how much more encouragement China needs.
The final test has been observing how “the West,” most particularly the United States, deals with Russia’s aggression. At the same time, Russia’s abilities are also being evaluated. China is perfectly happy to fight to the last Russian, even as the West seems to be happy to fight to the last Ukrainian. Gaining such knowledge will be put to China’s advantage – everything is. China cares very little what happens to Ukraine or to Ukrainians; just as little about what happens to Russians and Russia, itself. Russia has been a rival of China’s almost since Mao Tse Tung took over. China is playing a century-long game with respect to Russia, too. Helping Russia, now, buying its oil and gas, for example, may, in China’s view result in the acquisition of far eastern Russia, enabling the encirclement of Korea and Japan and control of key parts of the Pacific. If you’re thinking that , “… oh, China would never try to do that…” then you haven’t been watching its creation of artificial islands and their militarization and disturbing encroachment upon the Phillipines, and Taiwan. Indeed, the entire arc of Southeast and South Asia is waiting to see how the U. S. responds to China’s expansionism. No other country in the world can oppose China and the globalization of Communism.
Interestingly, the World Economic Forum is pushing capitalist countries toward global unification, obviously under the benign management of bankers and oligarchs. This is diametrically opposed to China’s plan for world hegemony, under the benign management of the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP. Where the W. E. F. says that in the future we won’t “own” anything and therefore we’ll be happy, the CCP believes we’ll be happier under their form of Communism and total social control that our ephemeral “freedom” fails to afford us: not that different in net. Neither option will be “Constitutional,” and no one but the United States will be a defender of the principles of our nation. This part of our exceptionalism is being constantly eroded BY AMERICANS! Even people we have elected to our own Congress are actively attempting to destroy our Constitutional culture, now reinforced by a Biden administration that is compromised by BOTH China and Russia! Interestingly, Biden’s family is even compromised by Ukraine! What a mess. Just be certain, in your heart of hearts, that NEITHER THE W.E.F. OR THE C.C.P OPTION IS IN THE UNITED STATE’S INTEREST!
Prudence is deeply concerned about the ascendancy of the oligarchy in the U. S. and elsewhere in the West. Multi-billionaires do not respect Main Street, U. S. A., nor do they respect the basic family values that drive American culture. Moms, Dads, marriage, Christianity and children raised by parents, are not the path to power that oligarchs crave. The general morality of the ultra-rich is quite different from that of most moms and dads – by some reports, rather depraved. When one’s fortune reaches a certain size, the impetus to make governments protect that fortune becomes paramount. Politicians, unfortunately, are unusually attracted to power and money much like true oligarchs, although they are not smart enough to earn the billions to gain economic entry to the oligarchs’ club. So, sadly, many are willing to sell-out to the real power brokers, because re-election is equally sought-after. There is a relative handful of true patriots or statesmen and women in office who will sacrifice to protect the last best hope of mankind.
Wow! All of this from the “Ukraine” problem? May God protect that nation and its people.
President Joe Biden speaks about his domestic agenda from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021, as Vice President Kamala Harris looks on. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Thousands of independent truck drivers in Canada have coalesced to protest their government’s Covid-19 “vaccine” mandate. Many are “vaccinated” (have accepted the weird injections) but are demanding freedom to choose what goes into their bloodstreams. Their Premier, Justin Trudeau, has scurried off to hide from them, claiming exposure to Covid – what else? He’s a heroic figure by his own account. He looks more like an asshole, but that’s subjective.
In all likelihood truckers in the U. S. are going to form their own convoy in protest of our government’s denial of freedom, too. Canada’s convoy was up to 45 miles long as it descended upon Ottowa. The Americans will try to exceed that, one suspects. Either way, the Canadians have inspired working people around the world to organize against the soft, yet hardening, tyrannies of supposed pandemic suppression; this applies mainly to the Biden Administration.
President Joe Biden has imposed an odd case study of how strange, long debunked theories of leftist governance, can screw up a large nation in a matter of months. Still, we have to go back further than January 20, 2021 to appreciate the impact of leftism on a supposedly Constitutionally limited democratic republic, particularly in reaction to a national “health emergency.” Covid-19 was such a perfect foil for destroying freedom and personal responsibility, that leftists have almost rejoiced in the opportunities to show how much better life can be under the firm hands of government control. It has fit their dreams so well that the creation of Covid-19 might appear to be a gift from the great leftist in the sky… or in China – same thing to some.
All of this brings us to contemplating how many left-ward changes POTUS (Poop-head Of The United States) has made in slightly more than one year. Among them are a host of UN-Constitutional, EXTRA-Constitutional and ANTI-Constitutional actions and policies. A number of them will, patriots hope, lead to impeachment and conviction of Mr. Biden. One glaring example is illegal immigration, one of the first “orders” POTUS issued on January 21st, his first full day in office. Biden reversed every Trump administration border policy, stopping virtually all deportations and virtually all arrests of illegal entrants. By so doing he ushered in one of the great travesties in U. S. history.
Since the end of January, 2021, nearly 2 MILLION illegal entrants have crossed the southern border – by the hundreds and thousands – and Joe Biden has forced the Border Patrol and I.C.E. to allow them in and then to provide various articles of clothing, cell-phones, prepaid for a year, hotel rooms and rides, even flights, to wherever the illegals want to go, or wherever Biden wants them to go. This policy requires the specific subversion of U. S. law. It forces expenses upon the sovereign states that created the FEDERAL governing system, completely subverting the Tenth Amendment. There is no pro-American value to it. Indeed, beyond unfettered access to public welfare programs and illegal residence in our country, illegal entrants are afforded more rights and far fewer legal constraints than are U. S. citizens! In fact, the federal government bends over backwards to provide Constitutional rights and protections to illegal aliens, including providing attorneys to every illegal entrant to defend their spurious claims to asylum. Many bleeding-heart liberals consider that it is the duty of the United States to feel sorry for, and provide welfare to, every unhappy person in the world. While that’s a sweet opinion, it has almost nothing to do with the purpose of nationhood: survival.
Every nation on Earth has a reason for being. For some, for most, actually, it is ethnicity. That is, nationhood typically has sprung from tribal identity, although most countries have also been fought for against neighboring tribes, and often expanded thereby. In too many examples nations have been cobbled together through domination and war. Commonality of language and / or religious belief has proven just as nationalizing as ethnic tribalism. Many factors combine to establish – and maintain – successful nations. Only one nation has survived because of a set of principles, almost despite ethnicity. It is exceptional.
To cement its unique reasons for being, the founding Fathers – and Mothers – of the United States of America, established an ageless covenant with the people of their recently fought-for states: The Constitution, the most respected and “copied” foundational document in the world. Every President, commencing with George Washington, and virtually every other elected state and federal official since, has sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. One might think that failing to do so would be justification for removal from office.
Every nation, however it justifies its continued existence, recognizes and passionately defends its borders… and its culture. For a nation to be led by a person or group of people who take actions to NOT defend its borders or even its culture, would seem to honest citizens sufficient reason to remove him or them from power. Back to Covid-19.
There is a large cohort of ostensible Americans who are charged with the vital task of conveying the culture and heritage of the United States to its children – to our future, in fact. Unfortunately, teachers and the overarching public education industry, have, over the past fifty years, been co-opted by ultra-leftists and virtual communists. Teachers’ unions have established themselves as the operators of schools, rather than the parents of children or the local, elected, school committees or boards who, presumably, answer to their constituents. It all results from political – and financial – corruption, with most of the finances being tax dollars… tax dollars extracted from real property owners, primarily, under the threat of police powers.
As a consequence, anti-American ideologies are taught to students in schools of “education” and then taught to elementary school students with the knowledge of their parents. This is changing, but decades of damage have been accomplished, reflected in a general malaise infecting 5 to 21-year-olds, noted in rates of drug use, lack of religious education, hyper-sexualization and suicide rates. Many of our youth believe they prefer socialism to capitalism, and if it’s the form of monopolistic, oligharchic wealth concentration we have allowed to date, they are right. Our Constitutional Republican form of governance and freedom is designed to allow for hope, imagination, joy and attainment. Our schools and attendant politics have produced less and less capable or independent young adults, and a lack of hope so profound as to destroy institutions like marriage, motherhood and fatherhood. If a primary purpose of nationhood is survival, America is failing. Illegal immigration won’t fix what ails us.
Covid provided thousands of incipient fascists with a perfect opportunity to push people around. The three most destructive effects of government “emergency” powers are the destruction of thousands of small businesses and millions of jobs, destruction of what was left of American economic freedom and budgetary strength, and destruction of the education and development of millions of K through 12 students. “Educators,” so-called, in teachers’ unions and administrative positions in virtually every school system, learned to exercise powers they’d only dreamed of prior. Parents, their schedules and economies and their precious offspring could be controlled in ways never imagined under our Constitution. As the truth has been spilling out about actual Covid threats and effects, schools are the largest remaining poisoned well of fascism – including pushing these dangerous injections onto kids as young as five years. It all constitutes a crime against humanity. Australia, New Zealand and, now, Canada, have enjoyed practicing new-found fascistic powers, to the point of mobilizing against freedom. Many of those same teachers are envious.
Naturally, parents have rebelled against the cloying, sticky blob of indoctrinators, and have succeeded many areas. Covid helped to expose the rot. But the lerftist, Democrat power structure will not relinquish its attempts to replace the American system with global socialism, readily or cleanly. Its members are clever and cunning, albeit not wise. The Biden deministration is happy to sic Merrick Garland and his DOJ thugs, so to speak, on parents who resist the wasting of education time on critical race or gender theories. What the Hell are we doing with the American dream bequeathed to us over the centuries?
Americans like to believe that we can work hard to elect this or that person or set of persons, and thereby change the direction of freedom, opportunity and of government, itself. It barely works anymore. Elections come and go, but the direction of government is inexorably toward higher pay and benefits for government officials and employees – higher than for average citizens – toward increasing benefits and rights for non-working welfare recipients, toward increasing benefits and rights for illegal entrants, toward increasing controls over individuals’ rights and freedoms, and toward perpetual, unredeemable debt.
Two things must happen: 1) voters must become smarter, hopefully wiser; and, 2) candidates for office must become smarter and better principled in terms of commitment to our Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
Are we wise enough, collectively or individually, to stop electing anti-freedom, anti-American officials and “representatives? Do we actually believe that we can ignore the Constitution and just vote ourselves benefits from government much longer? Please.
Time may not be on our side. One cannot overview the world and our political circumstances… and the calendar, without realizing a little fear for where things might go from here. Where is that?
Let’s look at some of the pressures building up.
First, the political time-line. Mid-term elections are the historic relief valve for sometimes hasty or confused political decisions made during presidential elections two years earlier. There certainly were those in 2020. Because the national conscience is so, well… impacted by beliefs concerning the 2020 elections – stolen or not stolen – the release of tensions in the 2022 mid-terms is a little harder to predict than what a lot of pundits are trying to foresee. Most are making judgements on “normal” political considerations and it doesn’t seem Prudent to do so.
The weird eminence that most have already discounted, but who is the key to millions of voters’ decisions, is Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. She has been a unique Speaker, at least. For decades she has appeared to be simply a fierce partisan and has been appreciated, if not revered, by partisan Democrats who were happy to be “winning” barely-understood battles through her slick machinations. By rights, she should be at the end of her career, and she probably is, but it’s a career that descended into a previously unrecognized socialism starting under Obama and deepening with hatred under Trump. In those 12 years, Democrats became uneasy. While enjoying victories Nancy engineered, no matter how messy, Dems also became concerned about the leftward lurch, yet had no other port in which to seek refuge. Over the Trump years, leftist hatred for “America First” left many Democrats adrift. What are they going to do in 2022?
If “centrist” or “American” Democrats abandon the Pelosi-led leftists (not that Pelosi was elected to lead the leftists: she has run, skipped twisted and kneeled as needed to stay ahead of them) will they suddenly vote Republican? That doesn’t seem Prudent. Will they fail to vote in standard numbers? That question forces Prudence to wonder about what “the Black vote” might do.
Blacks have slowly been drifting away from their Democrat plantation, with an interesting increase in that trend in 2020. Despite Covid, Blacks did well economically under Trump since 2017. Despite, also, a perpetual anti-Trump media blitz accusing Trump of racism, Blacks could see that his policies helped all races. Like all underdogs, Trump was seen somewhat sympathetically by Blacks who understood too well how prejudice hurts. Have Blacks been treated better by increasing leftism? Were they advanced by BLM-led riots and Antifa hatreds that damaged so many black businesses and jobs? Have they been helped by Democrats’ union-led resistance to school choice? Has weakening public safety served Black families or neighborhoods in any way? Are they particularly likely to “reward” Pelosi’s weird coalitions with more power, more votes? That doesn’t seem Prudent, either. But, will they vote for anyone else?
So, on the backdrop of multiple failures of the “Biden” administration and severe economic news, what will be the “shape” of the change in fortunes for our two parties? Over the next 11 months, how virulent will the Pelosi Left become? Clearly their anger has been kindled by the loss of legislative momentum thanks to West Virginia Senator, Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator, Kyrsten Sinema. Even 3 counties of Maryland would like to become part of West Virginia.
In 2020 we suffered through months of cultural destruction and destructive rioting and looting and economic despair in numerous cities. Many strange, leftist mayors and governors have been exposed as feckless, ignorant and ideologically foolish. Americans are practically fleeing their jurisdictions for states that seem to honor the Constitution more. Yet the Pelosi House insisted on passing the enormous, so-called “Build Back Better” bill that would have transformed fundamental freedoms and democratic-republic structures created by the Constitution. Against the backdrop of systemic failure at the southern border and the flood of illegals swept into the country by administration policies, the congress spent inordinate time on the “BBB” plan and the pointless “January 6th” commission. Not a word is spoken in congress about what Americans are truly upset about, not least of which is the southern border. With that legislation apparently doomed, what will the 117th Congress do to improve Democrats’ re-election chances in 2022? Most options are likely to do damage to the republic at least domestically.
_________
Internationally, the Biden bindlestiffs have made a mockery of leadership and of honesty. Without fundamental honesty, there are no diplomatic maneuvers that will work, almost regardless of what’s at stake. In matters of war and alliance, conditions, tensions, and opportunities for gross, deadly errors, can spiral out of control quite abruptly. Let’s look at the simplest area of tension: Iran.
The postulate is the following: Iran hates the United States as much or more than it hates Israel. Iran is a theocracy determined to correct spiritual wrongs to the point of suicide. To correct those wrongs, Iran will use nuclear weapons. The inherent danger is that first the Obama regime and now the Biden regime DON’T BELIEVE THESE THINGS. That is, they’d rather believe that Iran is as rational as other nations, desirous of better living standards for its people, better economic conditions internally, and willing to negotiate to achieve those ends. All this talk about “death to America” and wiping Israel off the map is just talk, just posturing. Because they don’t believe the United States can be guided by religious concepts of good and evil, neither can any other nation. The United States can show them how love is better than hate and kindness and generosity will prove that the U. S. can be a reliable partner in seeking a better life for Iranians.
As the imbecilic John F. Kerry, onetime Secretary of State once said: “Would that it were, would that it were.” For a man who has but the mildest relationship with truth, he places a lot of faith in the words of Iranian negotiators. He apparently believes that Iran is enrichening Uranium purely for domestic power production… to improve the standard of living for Iranians.
Trump, to his America-first credit, had a sense of when he was being lied-to, and that extended to Iran. He recognized that the “Iran Nuclear” agreement (never proposed as a nation-binding Treaty because it would never pass the Senate) was a pack of lies, which, naturally, Biden has been begging Iran to renew under his administration. Iran has refused, so far. With all the cash and lifting of sanctions that Obama and Biden have given them, the Iranians no longer need to negotiate further concessions under the agreement – they received what they needed for free. Now it is merely a matter of time before Iran starts issuing nuclear-backed threats toward Israel, which the Biden regime will perceive as opportunities to go “back to the negotiating table.” To their credit, Israel (and other nations in the Mideast) will take steps to prevent an Iranian strike. The U. S. won’t, failing to realize that Iran will likely strike both the Little Satan and the Big Satan simultaneously.
PRUDENT JUDGMENT: VERY DANGEROUS UNDER THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION.
The next simplest, as in somewhat more complicated, problem area is the Western Pacific, including both Taiwan and North Korea, but also India, unfortunately. Here is the postulate: China intends to take over Taiwan; China virtually controls what North Korea does at any point; China will not move against Taiwan if it believes the U. S. will fight for Taiwan’s independence; China is beginning to think that the U. S. will not make any serious moves to stop China (the Biden family’s compromised position vis a’ vis China is a factor, here); and, finally, North Korea will make some sort of military moves against South Korea at the same time, seriously complicating United States’ response to the Taiwan crisis. There has been shooting along the frontier of China and India within the past 18 months. It is not inconceivable that China would stir that pre-heated kettle at the same time or before, that it moves against Taiwan. This feint would likely involve Pakistan, as well, another nuclear power that hates India. Every nation in the arc from the Arabian Sea to Qinzhou will suddenly be seeking a side in the conflict. The failure of the U. S. to decisively defend its allies will transform the entire region and its oceans… and world trade.
PRUDENT JUDGMENT: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS UNDER THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION.
Finally, of the 3 hottest spots, Ukraine and Russia are preparing for some level of shooting. The U. S., thanks to Obama and Joe Biden’s family, has meddled in Ukraine for years. Ukraine is a big country that encompasses wide swaths of fertile land, great waterways, warm-water coastline on the Black Sea, huge coal deposits and iron ore, manganese ore, and other ores, which yield a large steel industry, heavy machinery manufacturing and, its greatest political weakness, a natural, relatively unimpeded pathway for oil and gas products to be transported to Western Europe. The same can transport armies, too.
For more than a thousand years the Russian people have had strong cultural and religious ties to Kyiv, now the capitol of Ukraine, and to Crimea, Odessa and Sevastopol. Strategically, the naval value of Crimea is perceived as so crucial to Russia, as with the USSR, that taking the Crimean peninsula “back” from a recently independent Ukraine was worth the international condemnation. It’s a done deal and will never be negotiable.
In addition, the industrial heartland of Ukraine in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnetpropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhya, covers much of eastern Ukraine from the Dneiper River to the Russian border. Russia depends on many of the manufacturers in the region for not just machinery, but military and aerospace equipment. Not having complete control of them is a sore spot. Further, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson districts have significant Russian populations and Russian-speaking populations, which has formed an excuse for Russian regulars posing as irregulars or subversives, to create an enclave of sorts with a militarized line facing Ukrainian army regulars.
Sensing weakness and indecision from the Biden administration, and determined to not have Ukraine join NATO, Putin and the Russian Federation is looking for the opportune time to, in effect, take control of eastern Ukraine, if not all of Ukraine, by military force or forced federation. When they move, what will Biden do? Both Democrats and some Republicans have made tough-sounding statements about standing firm with Ukraine as if the status of Ukraine were a vital national interest. Perhaps it is. But setting up a line of U. S. troops to deter Russia seems unduly provocative. If the situation were reversed and the Russians were placing troops to deter the U. S. from taking over cartel-dominated Mexico, let’s just say, we would certainly not find that a reason to stand down, would we?
What seems “small” to most Americans, in geopolitical terms, could place us in a hot confrontation with a huge nuclear power, 4,000 miles from our border, where both the land location and the naval one make us the underdog.
PRUDENT JUDGEMENT: VERY DANGEROUS UNDER THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION, and more dangerous than it appears.
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The shift away from “America First” thanks to the 2020 “elections,” has caused friends and foes, alike, to re-evaluate their relationships with the U. S. The brutal withdrawal from Afghanistan, apparently executed by military idiots and a bumbling president, has changed strategic calculations by many nations. The English-speaking world no longer reveres the U. S. as the leader of their coalition, and certainly does not respect Biden as it did Trump. A strong, pro-national leader is not only respected, but understood by other nations, including adversaries. There is a profound logic to leadership that clearly is patriotic and who speaks clearly of his – or her – intentions. No nation likes surprises, internationally, nor confusing messages. Every leader can make clear judgments about clear leaders, even about those they view as opponents. This is not our current situation.
It has been said many times that the most dangerous circumstance is when other nations are unsure about what America will fight for; it is yet even more dangerous when America, itself, is unsure. God save us.
President-in-name-only, PINO, Joe Biden, day by day, confounds Americans. Americans who intend each morning to fulfill the obligations of motherhood and fatherhood, who intend to see that their children are educated and advanced just a little, along their paths to balanced, successful adulthood, and who intend to perform their best at work or service, providing for their families and communities, are assaulted by ideas foreign to our culture and to our fundamental legal, moral beliefs. Some of these are freshly minted, like the attempt by Attorney General, Merrick Garland to criminalize parents objecting to some of the crap being taught to their children, most particularly a parent whose daughter was raped at school by a boy claiming an identity that “allowed” him into the girls’ room where the attack occurred. As this father was being arrested for yelling at the local school committee who had participated in covering-up the attack due to their agenda of promoting “trans-genderism” ideology, the committee members, the Superintendent and the principal of the high school claimed the attack was unknown to them!
Normal citizens find this hard to process. We grew up trusting our public schools, entrusting our children to them for 5, 6 or 7 hours a day. When did we have to become fearful of everything they do?
Some of what assaults us is several months old and only lately reported upon by even some of our “media” who typically ignore issues that don’t fit within their own agendas, as untoward as the concept of agenda-driven news, is. When did we have to become skeptical of everything our “news” sources tell us? One of these issues is immigration.
Most of media – and the high-tech censors like Google, Facebook and Twitter, don’t allow coverage of the illegal actions of the Biden administration at the southern border. Millions of Americans are unaware of the ongoing crimes Biden, himself, has caused. This odd man has proclaimed that a constant flow of “immigrants,” illegal, unvetted, often disease-ridden entrants, is a source of strength for the United States. His reasoning: he was the grandson of Irish immigrants and look how great he turned out! What a scurrilous dope. His party engineered an illegal, fraudulent election to make sure he got certified for enough electoral votes to put that party and its socialist benefactors into power. Lie upon lie upon lie. And they lie about the illegal entrant invasion that they have CREATED.
We have laws, including laws that limit and control immigration. The disingenuous President swore, on January 20th, that he would “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” among his other responsibilities and obligations, not least of which by any measure, is “to the best of (his) Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” None of what he promised during that inauguration has been fulfilled: he lied, outright, to the American people. In particular, on the matter of Immigration, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution he has sworn to uphold, there is a clear directive to the “United States” nation, as follows:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Pertinent to the time of the writing of the Constitution, the term, “Invasion” applies exactly to the organized breaching of our defined borders, including the borders of States, by hordes of non-citizens who have NO LEGAL RIGHT TO OCCUPY any portion of those states. Now, not only has Mr. Biden directed the Border Patrol and ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to NOT ENFORCE the laws that define those agencies, but he has marshaled military and domestic transportation systems to distribute the flood of illegal aliens across the nation – without consultation with States’ governors – and, interestingly, significantly into states that typically vote Republican. One is justified in wondering why that would be so.
Surely it wouldn’t be to distort the voting patterns in favor of Democrats, would it? Despite the occasional admission of this being the purpose of rampant illegal entry, no real American, sworn to “uphold” the Constitution of the United States, would ever sink so low as to disrupt the rights, freedoms and safety of U. S. citizens, or steal their income and wealth as the result of illegal entry, would they? Say it isn’t so. You’d be lying.
The statue of Goddess Athene on the top of the famous Pallas-Athene-Brunnen in front of the Austrian Parliament in Vienna. Built by Theophil Hansen 1898-1902.
For a free people, freedom becomes increasingly harder to realize or defend when knowledge is limited by twisted education (which is to say, by the government) and by outright, calculated lying by that same government. To maintain control at the most fundamental levels, a government bent on Fascism will weaken the economic standing of most Americans and, equally as powerfully, create dependency upon the government for health care. Nearly $30 Trillion debt clarifies the former; elevating Anthony Mussolini, errr… Fauci, to prevaricating pandemic potentate, makes obvious the latter.
To whom does a citizen turn to counter a government that lies? Does he or she try to work more often with local or state government because they are more likely to tell the truth – no certainty, just greater likelihood – because he or she may know someone whose best friend has met someone working at that level? Like all contracts and covenants, only the honesty and integrity of their guarantors can give them force or value.
“Official” lies have become more creative since the Viet-Nam War. Viet-Nam exposed the mendacity of our well-respected military, whose veterans we have always revered. That period also revealed the ease with which our “free press” could be co-opted to push a leftist agenda. In the case of Viet-Nam this meant reportage of destruction and failure, terror and war-criminality, while beleaguered marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen are winning every battle of the conflict, an untold story. Trust in officialdom began to crumble.
Governments lying about, obfuscating or withholding truths from those governed is nothing new. History is a series of stories about conspiracy and secrecy within and between governments, not populations. The U. S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence that gave it flight, formed a shift toward honesty between government and citizens, culminating in the Civil War, in which both sides were brutally, murderously honest about their purposes and positions. It has been mostly downhill ever since, as the forces of tyranny, the more comfortable theory of governance for government-types, rubbed and abraded the notions of citizen sovereignty and bottom-up authority – liberty, itself.
The threshold events and actors are well-known: Teddy Roosevelt; Wilson; Hoover; FDR-Cordell Hull; Johnson-Humphrey-Rusk-McNamara; Nixon-Kissinger; Carter- Brzezinski; Bush the 2nd; Obama-Clinton-Kerry-Rice-Jarrett; Biden-Blinken-MIlley, and many of their hangers-on, of whom some were/are virtual if not avowed communists. Numerous congressional leaders steadily pushed American government further and further left, now to an accelerating rate by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer-Adam Schiff-Jerrold Nadler, A.O.C., Eric Swalwell, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and other fellow-travelers, many of whom literally seem to hate the United States. Here we are in 2021.
Gently speaking, the only federal agency whose pronouncements are accepted as true is Amtrak when they inform erstwhile passengers that thus-and-such train will be late by some number of minutes or hours. We also believe the Federal Aviation Administration is truthful, we hope. But anything coming out of any Cabinet department or the White House, or the House or Senate, or the “Pentagon,” is now taken with so many grains of salt. Since the phenomenal lies told during the Summer of Hate in 2020, and through the federal elections, there is very little that is trustworthy coming from any spoken or printed communication of the federal government.
Not a whole lot from state governments, either.
To whom does a law-abiding citizen turn when he or she is governed, cajoled or tyrannized by his or her government? A church? In a few cases, yes. But even normal conversations are rare among ordinary civilians, in 2021. Until one can discern or deduce what news sources a correspondent pays attention to, conversation is superficial at best.
Most Americans achieve respect for a politician who promises certain actions or efforts when running for office, and then does those very things. Even in disagreement, honesty by an office-holder is respected. Trump, for his braggadocio, embellishments and “mean tweets,” still pursued – and accomplished many of – the things he promised to do. His fundamental philosophy of “America First” never wavered, and his foreign policy held true to his philosophy. Americans learned to love “America First.” Under the Biden regime, whomever is the leader of it, We have learned to hate “America Last.”
Biden and his strange, far-left crew, have realized one distinct accomplishment. By reducing Americans’ expectations from the President and from any of his cabinet officers and functionaries, they are now meeting Americans’ expectations on a daily basis. When the Press Secretary speaks, everyone expects her to lie on behalf of the Biden cabal and she never disappoints! When Secretary of State Anthony Blinken testifies before Congress or holds a press conference, everyone, even including Congress, where most members are well adjusted to prevarication, expects him to avoid answering reasonable questions, to provide only partial scraps of information when he does answer, or to repeat lies that the regime has already spewed. No one is disappointed!
If the reader thinks that “all politicians lie” and Joe Biden is just being a “politician,” then he or she should pay attention to the southern border, which has spawned lies so grotesque as to place political lies in a wholly separate category of simple mendacity. Biden administration words, phrases, sentences and non-answers about the border and illegal immigration, are so crooked and twisted as to fold back upon the truth! How is this possible?
It seems as though the military, Homeland Security, the President and the president’s spokeswoman stay up late – well, not the President – just thinking up how to explain or avoid explaining to the American people that what they are seeing and experiencing at the southern border with Mexico is actually NOT what they are seeing and experiencing. Every action taken by the Biden regime regarding border protection, immigration policy, public health, “Homeland Security,” drug interdiction, human trafficking, child abuse and sexual slavery, makes clear how gross were the lies Mr. Biden told when he swore to uphold the Constitution and promised to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. With nearly hourly disingenuousness from media sycophants (formerly known as fellow-travelers) Biden cruises along, seemingly oblivious to the conditions at the border. When a question is tossed to him about “the border,” he turns his back and walks away.
Biden’s Secretary of “Homeland Security,” Alejandro Majorkas is in an impossible position… at least in terms of public relations. He does face questions and is required to claim that “the border is closed” while the Border Patrol tries to keep count of 200,000 or more illegal entrants PER MONTH. On the other hand, he has dropped the ultimate truth bomb: “…things are being handled according to plan,” or words to that effect. The sad truth is, an open border and flooding the country with unskilled criminals IS the plan – a plan the most crass, cynical and hateful aspect of which is no more than to first make the U. S. a one-party nation and second to tear down the United States as a stumbling block to global communism. Millions of Americans voted for these poop-heads, who claim that we “need” immigrants to fill jobs that are not getting done by citizens. It’s as though they might actually expect most of our invited illegals to actually work.
Joe Biden has never been at a loss for some prevarication or another. The first time he ran for president he contrived an elaborate story of his father’s mining career in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Lunch-bucket Joe, father was a miner. Unfortunately the story was untrue and, worse, had been “lifted” from a speech given by a British politician, Neil Kinnock, about HIS father. It was such a good story and Joe’s mental capacity being so limited, even in his 40’s, that “borrowing” it for his own campaign just seemed the best path. Rather odd, that. But Biden was uninjured by what should be seen as a gross lack of honesty. Somehow the father-was-a-miner whopper became part of the élan of Joe Biden. “That’s just Joe being Joe.” Well.
Joe was being Joe when he voted for the Iraq war and the Afghanistan invasion, but speaks forcefully against both actions, now. He worked as Vice President to help Saudi Arabia fight Yemeni fundamentalists, but speaks against it now. He advised Obama not to attempt to “get” Bin Laden in Pakistan, but he’s proud of it, now He was opposed to busing in the 70’s and 80’s, even working with Jesse Helms on legislation, yet was offended when Kamala Harris called him out on it during the 2020 campaign. Now, as Obama was, he is in favor of eliminating single-family zoning everywhere in the country. Millions of Americans voted for this poop-head. Now his title is POTUS: Poop-head Of The United States.
So, the fundamental question remains: To whom can a citizen turn in a supposedly Constitutionally limited Republic? Federal agencies and officers, top congressional leaders and most states have been lying to Americans while generating irrational fears about the Chinese-spread pandemic of 2020-21, while denying use of effective treatments for Covid-19 infection, and while destroying small businesses in the name of “stopping” Covid-19. Federal agencies, including the White House, and several state officials and agencies are colluding with media companies to censor news and opinions about alternatives to the “party line” on the pandemic, the “vaccines” and treatments, not to mention questions about vote fraud in the presidential election of 2020 – quite arguably in contravention of the First Amendment – and citizens are wondering where to turn for “redress of (their) grievances?”
What is a greater threat, lying outright or preventing the dissemination of truth? Perhaps the President will set that straight for us.
